I started collecting beer caps and caps from soft drinks at the beginning of 2007. I was 13 at the time. I also collect soft drinks because I used to collect plastic caps from lemonade plastic PET bottles. The beginnings were interesting, exciting and I remember them very much. I was collecting crown caps for the first time under benches at a housing estate park in Bratislava when I was at my grandmother’s during the winter holidays. Later, I found them all over the village, around the school, on dumps, trips or holidays abroad. As a minor, I couldn’t buy beer at the store. Only with my parents did I choose some expensive foreign beers, just because of the bottle cap. Gradually, however, I began to go online and later mainly to online auctions, and I also bought older caps through public advertisements, which still help me a lot to expand my collection. I have been an extremely active collector from the beginning. As a result, my collection began to grow rapidly, and the first year I had over 1,000 different crown caps in my collection. At first I had stored my collection in the garage, after a few months I moved it from the garage to my room, where it took up more and more space in the furniture. Gradually, I began exchanging mailings with collectors from around the world using the Internet and e-mail communication. However, the first personal exchange was in my town Chorvátsky Grob. Michal from Bratislava came to see me and we exchanged nice pieces in the pub. In January 2009, I registered on Crowncaps.info – the international database of crown cap collectors. I have found there many exchange partners from all over the world with whom I still exchange. It was a very important step in my collection.

I like to take part in collectors meetings. I attended the first collector’s meeting of breweriana souvenirs in Bratislava in April 2009, organized by the Danubius Club Bratislava- breweriana items collector club. This meeting left me a very positive and unforgettable experience. It was amazing to meet for the first time many collectors in one place, who exchanged caps and also various other beer items. Two years later, I became a member of the Danubius Club Bratislava collecting club. There I found great support and gained experience from older members. Thanks to them, I went on trips to various large collectors’ meetings at home and abroad and many other benefits. One colleague gave me the nickname “crown cap shark”. This opened up completely new collecting opportunities for me. I regularly went to the largest Slovak collector’s event – a two-day breweriana items exchange in Martin, Slovakia. In 2013, I participated in the first ever global meeting of beer collectors in Martin, Slovakia. One of the best moments later was the first participation in the largest pan-European meeting of crown cap collectors in Hirschaid, Germany in 2015. There I regularly get hundreds, sometimes thousands of new caps. Over time, I gradually attended crown caps exchange meetings in Florence, Italy, Warsaw, Poland or Hamburg, Germany.